President Trump’s Task Force on Agricultural and Rural Prosperity reveals hardships of rural life after the Great Recession.
Policy and Organizing
The U.N. General Assembly Officially Declares the Decade of Family Farming
The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution aiming to ignite international efforts to support family farmers and their roles in developing hunger and poverty solutions.
To Save Family Farms, We Must Oppose Monsanto-Bayer Merger
The pending Monstanto-Bayer merger will increasingly limit farmers choices while increasing the price of required agricultural inputs. Congressional candidate Austin Frerick is out to right this wrong, restore competition within the market, and save family farms.
2017 Round of Global Climate Change Talks Sees First-Ever Progress on Agriculture
For the first time in the 25-year history of international climate negotiations, the 197 member countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have reached an agreement on agriculture. The milestone came near the close of the 23rd Conference of Parties (COP23) of the UNFCCC and formally establishes a process called the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture.
Building a Sustainable Food Future in Santee Sioux Nation
New research by the Center for Rural Affairs explores how the Santee Sioux people wish to rebuild a sovereign food system and build a healthier and more resilient Nation.
Keep Your Eyes on the Price: WTO Remains Blind to Agricultural Dumping
Farm leaders from around the world were greatly disappointed in the outcome, or lack thereof, at the biennial World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires. If the WTO is to fulfill its mandate to support development and reduce unfair trade, it has to keep its eyes on the prize of fair prices and address illegal dumping.
U.S. Law Schools Launch Healthy Food Policy Project to Support Local Policies/Legislation
A team of leading food lawyers and legal scholars in the United States (U.S.) is launching the Healthy Food Policy Project (HFPP), a collaborative initiative working to identify and elevate effective local food laws as examples for advocates in communities across the country. The website features a searchable database of local laws that seek to promote access to healthy food while contributing to strong local economies, an improved environment, and health equity.
India’s Public Stockholding: “Much more than a welfare program”
India’s food security and stockholding program uses precisely the same policies that the U.S. used in its early farm policy coming out of the Great Depression. Exactly the same: price supports, food reserves, administered markets, subsidies. The U.S. government used them because they work. India and other countries should be allowed to use them, too. Because they work.
WTO and Food Security: Biting the Hand that Feeds the Poor
India’s National Food Security Act (NFSA), is one of the most ambitious food security initiatives in the world, planning to buy food grains from small-scale farmers to distribute to some 840 million poor Indians, two-thirds of the country’s people.
France Takes Top Spot in 2017 Food Sustainability Index
The Food Sustainability Index, developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition Foundation, ranks 34 countries according to their food system sustainability.
